by John Creasey
A glance at his watch as he went to switch off the light showed him that it was twenty past twelve. Kulper’s report indicated that the watchman was supposed to reach the conservatory at twelve-fifteen: Kulper’s source of information was a reliable one, and Mannering was more than ever convinced that he could depend on it.
He had developed an uncanny ability to work in the darkness as effectively as in the light. He stood over the bottom combination twisting and turning, hearing the tumblers clicking. He forgot everything but the fact that he was breaking open a vault again. His subconscious mind was alert for the slightest sound as his fingers twisted and turned.
Once he thought he heard a rustle behind him, and swung round. He stood for a moment in the darkness, breathing heavily. Nothing moved, no sound came. A mouse, perhaps, or a rat, or even the falling of a branch of foliage. He turned back, and the next effort at the bottom lock forced it back.
He had carried the successful combination in his mind, and he tried it on the middle set of locks, without success. The same efforts followed, the same ceaseless turning, the same tension as he listened.
The middle lock clicked back, and he knew he was within sixty seconds of the first success.
The top lock was easier to get at than either of the others. He tried the two previous combinations, failed, and started again through the whole series. Darkness, silence broken by that faint clicking of tumblers, and the soft breathing of the Baron. His lips were parted, his eyes were glittering as the lock at last gave way.
The Baron stepped back a pace.
He glanced about him swiftly, seeing and hearing nothing, and then he took a thin file from his tool-kit, running it round the edge of the door. By the top lock he found a wire: the thin pincers came into operation again: and twice more, for there were wires by each lock.
Then he pulled slowly and cautiously at the door.
It was heavy, but it swung easily and without a sound. Beyond it was blackness. He knew there was a flight of steps, widening at the bottom, where he would find another door, the final one. But somewhere between the top of the stairs and the second door were the remaining watchmen, and apparently they worked without a light.
That wasn’t feasible. The Baron hesitated, listening intently, convinced now that the others had been alarmed and the light had been turned out because of it. He tried to pierce the gloom but failed, for he dared not use his torch; it would give him away in a moment.
Very slowly he stepped to the first stair, and then pulled the door behind him, so that it closed without locking. He felt along the walls, but there was nothing there to give him cover. Almost desperately his mind went back to the plans. There was the staircase, widening on each stair, until at the bottom it was six yards across. A wide passage, more of an ante-room to the vault than anything else, but nothing at all behind which he could take shelter.
He had to go back or go down, and he hardly thought of retreating as he stepped cautiously downwards, keeping close to the right-hand wall all the time. He had counted the fourth of twelve steps when he saw the flash of light below.
A brilliant white gleam shone straight up the middle of the stairs. It dazzled him for a moment, but as it began to move round he could see the reflected glow on the figure of the man holding the torch.
The beam was coming slowly towards him, perhaps a foot across. In another few seconds it would shine on him; the guard’s suspicions had been aroused, and the moment was pregnant with danger.
The Baron drew a short, sharp breath, poised himself, and jumped!
It was the only thing he could do, for if he waited the guard at the bottom would start shooting the moment the torch revealed an intruder. He went smoothly through the air, hearing the man swear suddenly: and then they crashed into each other.
The Baron had his arms and legs wide, and he folded them about the guard. The torch clattered from the man’s grasp and went out. The Baron took a punch in the chest that made him gasp, and then they hit the ground, struggling furiously but with little sound. Mannering brought his right hand away quickly, groping for his pocket. He found the gas-pistol and drew it out, using his left hand all the time to prevent the man from shouting. Sharp teeth bit at his fingers once, but Mannering kept his hold, desperately though the other tried to loosen it.
Taking a deep breath and holding it, he touched the trigger.
The guard kept fighting for a few seconds, but the Baron kept pressing. The struggles grew weaker, and then stopped. Mannering used his chloroform pad again and then stood back, listening intently.
No sound came.
The third, guard should have been down here, according to the plan, but there was no sound or sign of him. The Baron was thinking fast, trying to find a reason, but failing. He was busy all the time, yet worried. How had this fellow been warned, and where was the other guard? It was reasonably certain he was not close at hand, or he would have joined in the fight.
The Baron’s torch shone on the crumpled body of his second victim, a thick-set, big-boned man who would have had the better of the Baron in an even fight. The Baron smiled tensely behind his mask as he ran through the loaded pockets. Exactly the same armoury as with the first guard was revealed, and Mannering dumped it against the wall behind the body of the second unfortunate.
Where the devil was the third?
He turned his torch round slowly. It lit on nothing but the bare walls and, directly opposite the staircase, the door of the underground strong-room.
He had heard of that door before Kulper had given him the particulars. It was electrically operated and controlled by a switch upstairs, but somewhere below was another switch that could be used for emergency. Kulper had not known where that was, and the Baron did not propose to look for it, for he might have wasted half an hour without success. Instead he examined the wall by the door very closely.
It was painted over plaster, and in turn, he believed, over bricks. Somewhere beneath the plaster was the wire, carrying power to the door.
With a small chisel he scraped away the paint. The plaster surface showed clearly beneath the bright light of the torch, and he saw that at one point the plaster was slightly raised above the main surface. He ran his fingers along the wall, some two inches from the door, and satisfied himself that the raise was running straight from the floor to the top of the door.
It was the channel chased in the plaster where the wire had been run, and Mannering knew how to work at it, convinced he could get through. The one anxiety was the missing guard, but he dared not lose more time in looking for the man.
He took three pieces of a small brace from his tool-kit, and joined them together. The brace was strong if dumpy, and he fitted the thickest bit he was carrying into the mouth. Then he put the point a quarter of an inch from the side of the chased channel, and began to turn.
The slight burring sound echoed loudly through the silence. Mannering counted ten very slowly as he drilled, and then paused. No sound disturbed the silence. Another ten, another pause. The bit was biting well into the plaster, and he changed the position, drilling four holes about an inch apart, stopping only to listen for any other sound. Then he made two holes between each corner-piece, and when they were finished there was a small square of plaster separated from the rest by the holes made by the bit.
He dared not drill straight onto the wire, in case a shock travelled through the steel. The next manoeuvre had to be doubly careful. With a small cold chisel he knocked away the little square of plaster. It flaked and dropped down, but the tapping sound seemed to echo like a steam-hammer, and he paused every second, listening, on tenter-hooks.
Nothing happened.
He tapped again sharply, and as his chisel came away he saw what he wanted.
As he had expected, the wire was covered with lead tubing, but it was within easy access. Mannering was smiling to himself, tensely and hopefully, and he replaced the brace and bit, with the chisel and small hammer, and drew a small tin from the kit.
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br /> It contained a strong corrosive acid, and the Baron took out the specially treated stopper gently, putting the neck of the tin against the lead covering. The acid flowed against it, and the Baron drew away.
There was nothing he could do for a few seconds, and he occupied the spare moments by looking about the hall, or ante-room. There were blank walls on all sides excepting where the staircase ran, and he was more puzzled than ever by the disappearance of the third guard. Three times he looked at his watch, waiting until a minute had passed. Then he took a hard ebonite stick from his tool-kit and turned back to the hole in the wall.
He used the ebonite stick much as a dentist would use a probe. The lead covering had been rotted by the acid, and beneath it the wire was easily broken. The current would not travel along the ebonite, and the risk of a shock was cancelled.
The wire was cut at last.
The Baron turned to the door, his eyes gleaming, his heart racing. There was a possibility that the door was locked by a key as well as by electricity, but the handle turned easily, and he pushed the door.
It began to open.
The last of the three big obstacles was past. If the third watchman had been with his fellows the Baron would have been sure of the ultimate success, but as he peered into the darkness of the strong-room he was prepared for a sudden attack.
Nothing moved inside, and he stepped in, closing the door behind him after making sure that the inside handle turned the locks as well as the outside one. With the door shut, he found the light switches just behind him.
There were three, and the first shed a dim glow about the strong-room, enough for the Baron. He saw the cases of jewels, locked and secure to all but a cracksman of first-class ability, and there were several safes against the walls of a room perhaps twenty feet square.
Nothing else.
There was no thought in his mind then of Halliwell or Kulper. He was simply the Baron, working with a startling speed, every movement quick and decisive. With a screwdriver and a powerful pair of cutters he opened case after case. They contained smaller jewels from Eldred’s collection, but when the glittering pile was on a small table in front of him, the Baron knew he had a fifty thousand pounds’-worth of jewels already.
The safes remained to yield up their contents. Should he open them, or should he call it a day?
The thought of Kulper, and the damage the man with a scar could do, made him work on. He pocketed the stones, and a glance at the safes showed him they were all made on the same principle. Only gelignite or dynamite or another explosive could open them, without an oxy-acetylene cutter.
Gelignite would be safe to use underground. He could go outside, after closing the door, and the sound would be confined to the strong-room. The brace-and-bit came into service again, and he drilled two holes in each safe, pouring acid in to weaken the resistance of the metal. The fourth safe finished, he scraped soft metal away, leaving a hole nearly two inches deep and wide.
Concentrated only on his job, he worked without ceasing for twenty minutes. There was then room for the gelignite, in each safe. He inserted it carefully, and then lit the fuses. All were three-minute trails, and he had ample time. He turned towards the door quickly, opened it, stepped outside and pushed the door. He half-turned—
Then he saw Kulper and Greene.
Both men were standing against the wall, both men held guns levelled towards the Baron. Kulper’s face was expressionless, Greene’s mocking and derisive. It was Greene who spoke hoarsely, while the Baron felt a white-hot fury burn in him.
“Thanks, Baron, you’ve done it just right for us. Reach for the ceiling, and make it fast!”
Chapter Nineteen
Double-Cross
Mannering kept his hands a little in front of his waist, the fingers crooked and apart. His eyes were hard, and beneath the blue mask his face was gaunt. Greene’s words faded into a silence that lasted less than twenty seconds although it seemed much longer.
Then Kulper spoke.
“You will be well advised, my friend, to obey.”
Mannering turned his head towards him. In the first moment of the discovery he had been conscious of nothing but the shock, amazement at the realisation of a double-cross he had never suspected. Kulper ‘always kept his word,’ Kulper—
“Just tell me,” said the Baron very slowly, and without moving from the spot a yard from the door, “what you propose to do, you foul little swine. I shouldn’t use that gun, Greene, I’ve as many tricks in my hand as you, and they’ll be a damned sight more effective.” He was bluffing desperately, but the smile left Greene’s face, and the man swore. Kulper took a short step forward, disturbed by the intensity of rage in the Baron’s voice.
“Talking like that is useless, Baron. We want the jewels.”
“You do, do you?” said the Baron, and there was an incredible derision in his voice, a contempt that made Greene swear again. “We agreed on a half-share, and we’re sticking to it. Keep your gun still, Greene!”
He was trying to count the seconds as they flew by, but it was useless. He was waiting for one thing that could save him now, bluffing for three precious minutes. He could not keep Kulper at bay much longer, but he needed just those three minutes.
Kulper and Greene thought he had the jewels with him!
Greene hesitated. His gun kept up, and so did Kulper’s, but they did not shoot. Kulper’s voice seemed drier and thinner than ever.
“You’ve made a mistake, my friend. We might have given you a share of the proceeds, had you not gone to visit Mrs. Loffatt. No, no, she did not talk, but you were seen to enter her flat. And that means that you are interested in us, that you visited Jackson because of that interest, and not for small change. It alters the complexion of the affair, my friend. We followed you, and you can thank us, for we met one of the guards.”
“Did you?” The Baron hardly knew what he was saying, he was only praying that the man would talk and keep on talking. “Well, what’s next?”
“A regrettable accident,” said Kulper. “I wish I could promise to leave you alive, but it would be far too dangerous. Such a craftsman as you will appreciate—”
Mannering took a half-step forward, and the two guns moved sharply. Neither were used, and Mannering realised they were scared of making a noise.
“I’m appreciating a lot of things,” he said. His heart was thudding against his ribs, he felt dreadfully hot, and the words threatened to stick in his throat. He had never been strained to such a point in his life, and he was desperately anxious not to over-estimate the time that had passed. Any second now he would snatch the one chance that he needed, and he had to make use of it. “I’m learning who killed Kingley, who is putting Halliwell on the spot. You like double-crossing, don’t you, Kulper? Well—”
Then it came.
A sudden, deafening roar that seemed to shake the very walls and floor of the ante-room. A crash as the door thudded to, a gust of wind that almost blew him off his feet. It did blow Kulper and Greene against the wall, for they had not been waiting for it with every muscle in their bodies tensed to withstand the shock.
The safes had blown.
As the roaring echoed like thunder in his ears, the Baron jumped forward. He had never felt so murderous, and his fists smashed out one after the other. Greene, rearing upwards, took a blow on the chin that sent his head back with a sickening crash against the wall, and Kulper, making a last-minute effort to dodge, took the Baron’s left fist on the right cheek and the side of his nose. He flopped sideways with his eye still open, and Mannering brought his left round, cracking beneath the little man’s chin.
Kulper did not groan, but he slid downwards.
As he went, and as the roaring of the explosions died away, other sounds came from the top of the stairs. A door opened, two figures appeared above, and came rushing down. The Baron glimpsed them as he bent down, hoisted Kulper’s body over his shoulder, and straightened up.
He recognised neither of the new
comers, and he was not sure whether they were Eldred’s men, or Kulper’s. It made little difference. He crouched back against the wall as they tore downwards, looking neither right nor left and worrying only about the inside of the strong-room. As they reached the bottom stair, Mannering’s leg shot out. One man hit against it and went sprawling, the other half-turned.
His mouth, gaping open, was less than an inch from the Baron’s gas-pistol. There was a slight hiss of escaping gas, and as the man staggered back, the Baron hit him hard, in the middle of the stomach. He was using his right arm and fist, his left was holding the unconscious Kulper like a leech.
The first-comer still on the floor, was grabbing at Mannering’s ankles. Mannering side-stepped, bent down and caught a glimpse of a terror-stricken face as he tossed his gun into the air, catching it by the barrel. The butt of it cracked against the man’s temple with a sharp snap.
Mannering did not wait to see whether it had made him unconscious or not. The whole house would be roused by now, and he had to get away. To be caught there meant the finish of him, and he was feeling bleak, desperate, almost despairing. He clung to Kulper as he rushed up the stairs, thankful for the light in the conservatory. He saw the hanging flowers without thinking of them, although the blaze of colour beneath the bright light was a thing of rare beauty. He reached the top and the open door.
Three or four men were coming along the passage, dressed in pyjamas and dressing-gowns, bleary-eyed and all carrying sticks or pokers. As the Baron came in sight they stopped, alarm showing on their faces as they huddled closer together.
They did not move.
Mannering’s head was like a furnace, and for a moment he did not understand their attitude. They were four to one, they could get him easily. They—
He had forgotten the gun in his right hand! They did not know it only carried a single remaining charge of ether-gas that would be useless at the distance of five yards. If they decided on a concerted rush they would soon discover the truth, and he would lose his chance.
